Anton Chekhov – Uncle Vanya
Are you Uncle Vanya? I am. [Gunshot sounds] Ouch! – The Reduced Shakespeare Company
2018
The Newsboys’ Strike
Conflict raged across the world in the closing years of the 19th century, from the Spanish-American war to colonial wars in Africa and the Boxer Rebellion in China. To focus on these big-picture events only would miss perhaps a more important fight – that of the newly awakened voice of labour against the ruling classes …
The Second Boer War
At the closing of the Victorian age, the Boer War saw the British discover they were not invincible after all – and though they ultimately won, the consequences would set the stage for South Africa’s history up until the present day. This documentary series goes into the story well, and includes plenty about the British …
Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness
The British Empire was never the positive, civilizing force that it was sold as, but the Victorians seemed, as a whole, to either sweep any misgivings under the carpet or consider them less important than their blossoming sense of national pride. It’s only in the dying years of the era that cracks start to appear …
Elsewhere in 1899
New Things Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Opel Motors, aspirin, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the paperclip, Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag, The Bronx Zoo, FC Barcelona, A.C. Milan, Oxo beef stock cubes, The Miele Company The first international Peace Conference ends, with the signing of the First Hague Convention. RMS Oceanic sails on her maiden voyage – at 17,272 …
1899
MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack “There probably has never been a sweeter, more naturally musical baritone voice than his… …Arthur Collins managed invariably to get into the wax the impression of a warm, lovable personality. The unctuous sound of his chuckles in dialect work is unfailingly charming. …
1898 in Art
Anna Klumpke – Portrait of Rosa Bonheur Arnold Böcklin — Plague Edwin Austin Abbey — King Lear, Act I, Scene I Ivan Aivazovsky — Among Waves José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior — The Inopportune L. A. Ring — Ved frokostbordet og morgenaviserne Odilon Redon – The Cyclops Teodor Axentowicz — Self-portrait Thomas Eakins — Salutat …
1898 in Film
The Astronomer’s Dream Dewar’s – It’s Scotch! (The first advert) Divers at Work on the Wreck of the “Maine” Eiffel Tower The Four Troublesome Heads A Switchback Railway Queen Victoria Arrives at a Royal Garden Party The Oil Gush Fire in Bibiheybat Tommy Atkins in the Park The Famous Box Trick Santa Claus Adventures of …
J’Accuse…!
It might not be the most reprinted newspaper editorial of all time, but the J’Accuse letter resonates all the way to the dark heart of the 20th Century like nothing else. Antisemitism, inter-European rivalries, the politics of industrial hate – it stands as both a grim foretelling of these forces and an example of the …
H. G. Wells — The War of the Worlds
Reading The Island of Doctor Moreau, I thought it must be the darkest of Wells’s science fiction stories, but The War of the Worlds represents some solid competition on that front. As stories of alien invasion go, it’s remarkably bleak and lacking in heroism. After the aliens land in the suburbs of London (the …